Pine resin (pine sap) is a material that injured pine trees produce to cover the damaged regions for the sake of self-protection. The pine resin prevents a loss of moisture, and propagation and infiltration of disease-producing microorganisms and has healing effects to prevent necrosis on the injured regions of pine trees.
Among the natural materials for herbal medicine specified in a variety of oriental medicine records and used for folk remedies, the pine resin possesses medical effects on inflammation, gastrointestinal disease, pulmonary tuberculosis, or the like, and a paste of its powder with water is recently reported to be useful as a good facial mask for acne treatment.
On the other hand, among the natural materials for herbal medicine specified in a variety of oriental medicine records and used for folk remedies, the needles of Pinus Densiflora indigenous to Korea reportedly have medical effects on liver disease, genitourinary disease, gastrointestinal disease, circulatory disease, cutaneous disease, and so forth, and recently many documents disclose the properties of the Pinus Densiflora needle extract, such as aromaticity, antimicrobial property, antioxidant property, and function of inhibiting activation of melanin (Jung et al., Antioxidant principles from the needles of red pine, Pinus Densiflora. Phytother Res., 17(9): 1064-1068, 2003). An experiment regarding the pharmacological effects of the Pinus Densiflora needles has been reported to reveal the effects of diets introducing pine needles on lipid metabolism in rats, antimicrobial property, antimutagenicity, antioxidant property and antihypertensive property (Kang et al., Korean J. Food Sci. Technol., 27(6): 978-984, 1995).
In the Korean culture, Pinus Densiflora Sieb. et Zucc. is a traditional dietary ingredient believed to be a drug for improving life quality for health and longevity, even turning humans into supernatural beings, and a symbol of constancy and fortitude in Korean people, and has different medical effects depending on its parts for a variety of diseases.
Red pine tree, Pinus Densiflora is used for medicinal purposes, and the parts of red pine tree come in different names, such as “pine knots” for branch and stem knots; “pine roots” for rudimentary root and root bark; “pine tips” for burgeons or the tips of burgeons; “pine needles” for needle leaves; “pine pollen”; “pine cone”; and “pine bark”.
Among these parts, the pine root collected and dried in spring is, according to the oriental medicine records, known to have a bitter taste and a property more warm than cold but no poison. The effective ingredients of the pine root include 75%•-pinene, camphene, dipentene, α-terpineol, camphor, p-methanol, and so forth.
According to the oriental medicine, the pine root is used to remove fatigue and treat bruise, ecchymosis, aching pain, haematemesis, and toothache. However, there is very little academic information on the benefits of pine resin, Pinus Densiflora needles and Pinus Densiflora root, such as effects of enhancing skin moisturizing activity and improving skin texture, skin clearness and skin contour.